Man-jumbo conflict concerns Naveen

Bhubaneswar: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik expressed concern over man-elephant conflict, trafficking of wildlife and forest fires and asked forest officials to prepare an integrated plan to address these issues.
Addressing divisional forest officers (DFOs) conference here on Thursday, the CM asked them to improve the health of forests and people living on the fringes of forests.
He said in spite of the difficult situation due to the pandemic, our forest cover has improved in the last two years as per India State of Forests Report- 2021. “We have added the highest number of mangrove forests in the country and third highest in total increase of forest cover between 2019 and 2021. This has been possible due to constant support of our people, the VSS members and tireless effort of forest staff in the field,” he said. He asked the officials to continue this trend in the years to come.
He advised forest officials to rope in SHGs to raise raising seedlings for the forest department. The forest department has successfully reduced incidents of forest fires by 50% this year compared to previous year, said minister of forest, environment and climate change Bikram Keshari Arukha.
Chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said apart from the usual functions of forest conservation and wildlife protection, the department has a larger role in facilitating projects that provide livelihood support to people living in forest areas. The state’s green cover has been increasing consistently for the last 20 to 25 years. Reforms have been affected in the department to streamline various processes and initiatives, said Mohapatra.